Smartphones and watches being used to cheat exams

MORE than 65 Leaving and Junior Cert cheats were disqualified last year – bringing to almost 500 the number caught since 2012.

The State Examination Commission said that exam monitors have to be extra vigilant due to the use of smartwatches and smartphones.

Information released to the Irish Daily Mail by the commission showed that 57 Leaving Cert and 11 Junior Cert students were caught cheating last year and had their results withheld.

Almost 500 sets of results have been withheld since 2012, including 84 in 2012; 78 in 2013; 61 in 2014; and 71 in 2015. A total of 118 Leaving and Junior Cert results were withheld in 2016.

These included students whose full result was withheld, or those who had some marks withheld. Of the 118, a total of 100 were Leaving Cert students and the rest were Junior Cert.

The rise of smartphones and social media has been blamed for making cheating more tempting for students to cheat in recent years.

‘The State Examinations Commission is very much aware of the need for vigilance in identifying and tackling electronically enabled breaches of the rules for the conduct of candidates in the State examinations in addition to all other types of breaches,’ a spokesman for the SEC told the Mail. ‘It’s not just the mobile phone, students now have “smart watches”, so we have to extra vigilant,’ he added.

The most common penalty applied is the withholding of the result in the subject in question. Where a more serious breach of the regulations occurs such as copying in more than one subject, withholding of all results and/or debarring from repeating the examination may be applied.

Withholding of results occurs as a consequence of a candidate attempting to gain advantage in the examination by means which contravene exam regulations for the conduct of candidates during examinations as set out in the rules and programmes for secondary schools.